THE WHIPPED MAN.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2562, 24 July 1909, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE WHIPPED MAN.

A STORY OF THE NIGHT RIDERS IN THE TOBACCO WAR.

(By Forrest Crissey and Harrison L Beach, in “Everybody’s Magazine.”)

A fox on his moonlight patrol of the ravine paused in his trot and sniffed inquiringly—a fore-foot lifted in dainty readiness for sudden flight. There was something uncommon in the soft night air—something bloody, something human. He flickered a pointed ear backward and then forward, but not a sound could ho catch save those which belonged to a September night in his own Kentucky woods—the stirring branches, the plaintive note of a night bird.

With exquisite stealth the red marauder continued up the ravine, his footsteps less audible than the faint tinkle of the iittle stream which threaded the draw. Again he stopped short; yes, there it was! In the shallows where the branch made a turn close to the steep bank, lay a man lengthwise of the stream, his round face white and puffy in the moonlight. And the water, where it flowed from under him, was tinged with red. In a dash the fox was darting along the back track, his ruddy brush waving sinuously as he bounded through the thicket. In the moments since the nostrils of the fox had first detected the taint of man in the sweet night air, Buxton had begun to return from oblivion; his body remained as motionless as if dead, but his mind stirred faintly. Out of a vague and 'cast chaos came a sense of shame—the shadow of some lonesome and repellent degradation. Where was he? And’what had happened? He was lying on his back in the water —that was clear —and his back, from neck to

heals, seemed to be. a burning stone, go , rigid and heavy that he could not so J much a's try to move or bend it, and shot through with an agony of stings which wrung- groans from liis lips. Now, in a flash, it was. quite clear . to him—Mart Buxton whipped by Night Riders! Whipped until he had screamed at every stinging blow and finally had fallen, Availing and blubbering, into unconsciousness, like a coward schoolboy under the master’s rod!. And, as the Riders had laid on blows that di'OA r e stubs of branches into his quivering hack, they had taunted him with saying' that he’d rather die than ask quarter at the hands of low-down Night Eiders; that to be whipped by them and live through it would be a disgrace worse than death on the gallows. And lie said 'it, too! They were right about that. Then they had given him the last twenty cuts for talking to the newspaper man from the city—for telling him that the Night Riders Avere a pack of cowards avlio would have been a disgrace to the Ku Klux in their ■ most degenerate days. It Avas the man Avith the high-pitch-ed nasal voice Avho suggested that awful addition to liis punishment. If lie lived, lie would sometime- get that devil Avith the squeaky • voice. He had heard it before ; it belonged, he kneAV, to some one of the thousand or more men he had bought tobacco from in the - years past. He could hear that voice saying: “Give the dam’ Hillbilly a few more cuts for yappin’ about the Riders an’ Avhat he’d do if they ever tried to Avhoop. him”—and then came the most biting, burning, of all the bloAA's he had endured. His stumbling mind went back another

step to the instant when the ropes h/id been knotted about his Avrists and face pushed against the bole of a big black oak. Hoav tight they had

drawn the ropes as they tied him on the opposite side of the tree —so tight it liad seemed his arms would be pulled from their shoulder sockets. Another detail came back to him ; the same high, squeaky voice, the leader’s voice, saying: “Now cut your birches, boys, an’ don’t trim ’em too close. Leave a few stubs for ticlders. This Hillbilly’s about the worst rock in the road of the Association in all this country. He’s got rich out of we-all. Now teach fhim i’hold his jaAvs s’ tight he’ll run at the sight of a newspaper feller —if ever lie runs at all!” His vagrant mind took another step backward, to the moment when he had been sitting at his desk and arranging his papers preparatory to pulling down the roll-top and starting for home—that husk of a homo with the old widow Calvert. Once more he heard the soft, drawling voice of the stranger, whose lean length almost filled the doorway to its top, inquiring the way to the station. The sham stupidity of the man in response to directions, and the stranger’s assertion that his eyesight was “powerful bad,” came back to him,

together with his own unsuspecting , to pilot him across the vacant lot 'to the station, as he' was going that way himself. The sudden seizure at the

clump of bushes, the muffling of his head in a blanket, the hand gripping > jfl-ijq throat, and the sensation of his ▼being dragged with trailing'heels into the wooC’jJ*— all these pictures of the earlier night gradually revived in his groping mind. At last, as the bright moonlight struck full into his upturned face, his thoughts veered torpidly to the pre-

sent. Yes; he must do something; -but what? fit’s such an effort* when you think you have-a back of burning etone! Slowly, the situation cleared to

him, and fumblingly his benumbed faculties Avorked out a plan. To return home to Briscoe would- be death. He must, somehoAV, make his Avay to Sutton, six miles in the opposite direction. Hoav lucky that the ravine Avas the shortest Avay there! If only he could leaA r c his back behind he could manage it —but with that burning, crushing burden, the A r ery thought of action was sickening; and for several moments he lay still, irresolute, the soft gurgle of the stream about liis ears sounding strangely murmurous and pleasant. At last ho braced himself for the or-, deal,' rolled over, and, Avith gritted teeth, forced his shouldering, painshot limbs to rise. He kept liis feet, in a stumbling way, until he came to a huge gum tree prostrate across the Avoods path. Hedged in as it was by a thicket of brambles on either side, he knew that the- trunk of the big tree must be surmounted. Clutching a knot here, and a limb there, he crawled slowly upward like a snail bearing a shell of pain. Almost at the top he slipped back to the- ground again and lay in a groaning heap for several moments. Once more he whipped his flagging faculties to the effort, and this time gained the top of the trunk. Painfully sAvinging about, lie allowed himself to spraAvl, feet foremost, down the other side of the fallen gum, and went struggling on.

His pilgrimage Avas a gantlet of thorns and brambles, of lacerations and tortures. Occasionally he paused to throw his arms about a second-growth tree and gather his agonised forces for another staggering plunge . forward through tile moonlit Avoods. Were any scouts of the Night Riders Avaiting to Avaylay him? He did not care—for this time it Avolild mean death, and he almost Avished for its pain-destroying touch. But while life lasted he must push oh. A man must keep going while life lasts—even a Avhipped man! At length, when so spent that lie dropped to liis knees and crawled, he noticed that the timber Avas thinner and the path broader and more free from obstructions. If his strength AA'onld only bold out a little longer, he might yet reach the shelter of a human habitation. He thought to husband his waning powers by resting a moment, prone on the damp earth;; but a numbing stupor warned him that he must spur himself on or he would never reach the spot. Suddenly the baying of a hound caught his ear. He had followed that peculiar, resonant voice through the woods too often not to recognise it now. " It Avas Wade Hammack’s old “Jef,” the best foxhound that ever led a pack, and ho must be close to the Hammack home. And Avliat kind of a reception could he expect Avith this man with whom lie had not exchanged a word for ten years ? Their last Avords had been hot and hitter —on the night Avhen he had deliberately given Agnes Hammack, Wade’s sister, an opening for the breaking of tlieir long engagement. But there was no choice noAV; he must take his chances and submit to Avhatever might bo in store for him. Foot by foot, inch by inch, lie wriggled up the bank, clutching at bushes and occasionally letting his face drop against the cool earth. Once he slipped into unconsciousness, but the nearer baying of the hound aroused him and he reached for the leverage of a shrub a little higher up. All, but it Avas good to draw his body up over tlie edge of the ravine and clutch his hands into the grass! And there were the lights of the house! Would they wink out into the darkness before he could fight his way through the little grove to the door? His shaking hand again grasped the bole of a small tree, and Avith infinite tortures he drew himself up to a standing posture and then lunged wildly forward toAvards the house. Suddenly a belloAV from the throat of the hound filled his ears, and, as he felt the impact of the leaping dog, he saAV a flood of light from the opening door—then he knew no more until he opened his eyes in the room he used to occupy as a guest.

A woman was just leaving the room, and Wade Ham mack was standing at the foot of the bed.

“Well, Mart,” he exclaimed, genially, “I guess you’re all right now. Anyhow, we’ve tried to take good care of you—and we’re going to keep on. All you’ve got to do is to keep mighty quiet and not talk. That’s what the doctor says. You’re going to have a home with us as long as you need it, Mart—and that’s likely to bo for some time. Your back was as black as my hat,, and we had to use forcepfe to pull the wads of shirting out of your flesh — toughest job I over did, to hold you down while the doctor pulled! But, thank God, you didn’t know anything more about it! How you ever had the strength and grit to make your way up the ravine after such a heating is past me.”

“Whipped by Night Riders P’ muttered Buxton, as he again lapsed into unconsciousness.

Nearly. four weeks later the doctor stood by the bedside and was saying to Hammack: “Well, the fight is over. He can get up now and begin to move about a little. This is the most interesting case I ever had. When wo got through with his back that night, I couldn’t see one chance in a hundred of saving him. I regarded it as a moral certainty that blood poisoning would carry him off in a week at most. I guess I’ll never be afraid' to tackle the most desperate- case of that kind V. \. • . '-I ~<YV

that comes to me. But wasn’t that back a sight to freeze your blood?”. Buxton heard, but made no comment. He had been conscious for a long time of all that was going on about him; but he had not once, voluntarily.entered into the conversation. And when

lie made brief ans Avers to the questions put to him, it Avas, always in a shamed and servile way—as if a man Avho had been Avhipped by Night Riders had no right to converse Avith persons who had not suffered such unspeakable disgrace.

After he was able to stir out of the house he ranged the Avooded portions of tlio place, Avalking among the oaks a.t the edge of the. ravine with slinking, Avary footsteps. “Mart’ll get over that hangdog air and find himself again,” Hammack had remarked to his Avifc, “after Ins strength has come back. To be flayed to tlie edge of the grave could hardly help upsetting any man’s nervous system. The wonder is that he doesn’t act queerer. But I can’t make out whether it’s fear or shame that hounds him most. Occasionally he looks up at me Avith all the servility of a whipped dog—and then I’m sure it’s a crazy, distorted sense of shame that’s riding him. Again; when he starts at a sudden noise, I half believe lie’s in deadly fear the Night Riders are going to get him again. Anyhow,"the spectacle of a keen, honest, substantial business man—worth forty thousand dollars if lie’s worth a cent—slinking and cowering from one clump of trees to another and aA'oiding the sight of his best friends, is horrible.” “No; it isn’t fear,” returned Mrs. Hammack; “it’s humiliation, a kind of passion of shame. I’ve been.thinking about it a great deal, Wade, and I believe I understand Mart Buxton better than you do. He’s just about the proudest and the gentlest man I ever kneAV. His sense of independence amounts to a passion. There’s something in him that makes it impossible for him to accept a favor, and it alAvays Avas so. He Avas that way as a boy at school. And I made up my mind that he forced Agnes to break.off their engagement because he had the notion that she had more money, finer surroundings, and a little higher social standing than he, and that for her to marry him Avould be in a way of granting a favor to him. Agnes has conic to believe this, too; she told me so the other day. “As to being a coAvard,” she went on,

“lie Avasn’t one at the poorliouse fire, was he? It took just as much nerve to do what lie did as to carry himself well in a shooting scrape. So I say it isn’t fear that makes him such a pitiful hunted thing; it’s liis pride, his independence, the crushing of the spirit that ay as him.” “Maybe,” returned Hammack; “anyhow, whether it’s fear or shame, I don’t believe lie’s quite done for; lie’ll come out all right yet.”

But. the convalescent’s wariness of human contact seemed to increase- with his strength 7 and appetite. Hammack, howcA-er, had directed: “Don’t force him, just let him have his OAA'n Avay without hint or question. He’s trying to pick up the scattered parts of a man—and it’s a one-man job, and a slow one at that!” This suggestion Avas carefully observed by the household, and no Avord of question or counsel was offered him. His presence was tacitly ignored except when there Avas an opportunity for a delicate jmplication to the effect that it was both AA'cleome and permanent. One evening, in a family conference. Hammack said to his wife: “So he has been different to-day?” “Yes;” she responded. “He’s paced back and forth in the front yard and all over. The shadows and the open have been all the same to him to-day. Something has evidently come to life in him.”

“That’s good—anything’s better than this Aveird spell lie’s been under ever since that night,” responded Hammack, and then added: “Better leave me alone to-night, dear; perhaps he'll be mo\ r ed to slip in here and open up a iittle to me.”

Mrs. Hammack had hardly left the library when Buxton appeared in the doorway and walked nervously to the seat across the table from Hammack. The muscles of liis face quivered perceptibly, and the shadowy hands which grasped the edge of the table were trembling and jerking..

“Wodc,” lie began in a splintery voice. It was the first time lie had used the name since the black night of bis arrival.

“Go on, Mart,” Hammack urged “I’m gom’ up into the country tomorrow, and I want your gun you used to have a pair of Colt’s.” “What do you want of ’em, Mart?” ’ “I’ve got to kill a man. There was a fellow in that bunch thgt whipped me that did a lot of talking. 1 knew I’d heard that voice somewhere, some time, and I’ve been studying on it ever since.' It came to me to-day that I bought tobacco three years ago from a fellow at Hell’s Run, up in the northwest corner of the country, who had a. voice just like that.' I think it’s the same voice all right, and I’m going to got the owner cf it.”

Hammack withdrew his pipe from his lips and slowly, shook his head. “You can’t kill ’ a man on a think, Mart. When you know any man who was in that gang, then go after him and shoot him down,, and, by mighty, I’ll stand back of you, and so will all our Independent crowd. But can’t you. see that there’s got to be a certainty and no guesswork about this? You mustn’t take a step in this.until you know that the man .you’re going-after was one of the Riders who Helped to whip you.” There was a long silence, and the eyes 'of Buxton were fixed on 'the fat, ebony tobacco bowl at the end ,pf the table. ■ k v•... 'a'■ ■ :■■■ r! ■: ' ■ 7 ..v ; • ,W,y,y-

He appeared wholly oblivious of his friend’s presence, and in those moments it seemed to Hammack that he Avas Avatching the death < f a sopl, the shamed and ignoble darkening of the spark of manhood —for the eyes that had, just before, been bright with the light of duil and furtive. A spirit of hopeless shame looked out of them.' With only a scared glance in the direction of Hammack, the pitiful ghost of Mart Buxton slunk out of the library. “It Avas worse than seeing him die,” declared Hammack. in relating the perience to his Avife. “I almost Avish I’d let him go - after the man Avith the squeaky voice. But of course that Avouldn’t do—although Mart always did remember a voice better than J could a face.”

The next day Buxton av;i r missed from the Hammack place; but the morning folloAving, as Hammack entered his Avarehouse, he stopped suddenly, grasped at the side of the door, and exclaimed: “My God!”

At a rough stemming table, heaped with tobacco leaA’os, sat Mart Buxton, the only Avhite stemmer in, the big room Avliere scores of black hands wore deftly separating the tobacco leaves from the stems. <

“For a minute I didn’t recognise him,” explained Bradley Gaines, the superintendent, as lie stepped outside the door Avith Hammack. “He never spoke a word, but just walked in, like a half animated corpse, and dropped into tlie nearest vacant place at tlie bench. It dazed me so, at the start, that I couldn’t say a Avord. Then, as I. stared at him, it came to me that there sat Avhat’s left of Mart Buxton. Great God! iust think of it: Mart Buxton working with niggers!”’ “Let him alone, Brad,” Avas Hammack’s dejected comment, “and toll the help that any one Avho starts anything Avitli him Avill get-—” “Oh, I’ll tend to any nigger that takes a fling at him!” interrupted the superintendent. “But there’s no danger of that. They’re scared stiff of him don’t know Avhether lie’s alive or dead.”

“Do you?” inquired Hammack

“It’s '.the v-orst I OA'er saw,” the superintendent ansAvercd. “If that’s Avhat a whipping by Night'-Riders Avill do for a self-respecting man, I’d rather be cut into strips than live through it—bv the Eternal 1 Avould!”

“So would I,” answered Hammack. “ad n we may both haA-e a chance to stand by our words before long. I’ve got tlie Avarning—and it means business, too!” “What you goin’ to do, Wade?” the superintendent asked, chewing the edge of his moustache. Then as Hammack made no answer, he added: “You knoAV there mighty strong, Wade, and getting stronger every day. They Ac already burned Buxton’s Avarehouse and every building that belonged to him; up the Gaii Avay they’ve scraped tlie bods of every groAver v'lio wouldn’t conic into the Association. You’re about the only buyer left around here Avho hasn’t knuckled to ’em. Just so long as it Avas left to tlie men close in around here, you Avere safe ; but the leaders in the game found out that it’s easier to get men to put the torch to a stranger’s house than to a neighbor’s. That’s the Avay the Night Riders are SAvitched from one locality to another. Tlie Association men in these parts hate to go up against you ; they like you, in the first place, and then they luioav if you do-fight it will be hard Avith ’eni. If they try to Avipe you out, it Avill be with a gang from Avay back in tlie country to help ’em —to take the lead, in’fact.” .

“I know all that, Brad,” replied ’ Hammack, “and I’ve had it all out with myself and Maine. She’s with me. Went over the whole thing last night. You know I’ve been bounded and persecuted for a year back. About every dollar I’ve got, excepting' the home, is right in that warehouse this minute. It belongs to my wife and children, and it’s- taken me all my lifetime to get it together. Am 1 to sit down and let a, lot of lioo-toters burn it up? And what if I give in ? What would Ibe doing then? Playing traitor to the men who’ve stood back of mo from the time l made my start, going back on every obligation I’ve got in tlie business world. That’s the simple long and short of it, Brad. And then what they did to Mart Buxton is enough to make smo fight, anyway. That’s worse than outright murder.” “And so you’re going to stand and fight?” questioned the superintendent. ’ /

“Sure, I couldn’t be a man and do less, could I?” “No —an’ you’re a man, alt right, Wade ! I’m with you to the finish.” Hammack, in a half-embarrassed way, grasped the hand that Gaines extended, and then his voice suddenly fell to a common-place tone as he remarked: “The first thing is to hold ’em off a little and gain enough time to get good and ready, for’em. r Tlio boys that stand by me .are going to have everything needful to make the fight witli. So I’m going to slip up to the city and lay in a stock of hardware. To-day I’ll write to the Association men that I’ll consider their demand, but- want a little time to reflect on it.”

“They’ll give you the time all right,” commented Gaines. “You’re the last man in the business they really want to fight' with, if they can bring you round any other way.” “You might drop an incidental remark to the effect that I’m gone to the city to buy that housekeeping set-up for my "niece”—and Hammack paused to la.fgli at the ; convenience and plausibility of the approaching inarriago of his' .niece as a cover for shipping in a quantity of firearms and ammunition. On his return, as soon as I .the “hardware’.’,' had been safely stored away in V, .. ■ r

a little corner room of the third storey in the .Avarehomje, Hammack made out a list of “Independent fellows”'whom he could depend upon to stand with him in open fight against the Association and its secret auxiliary, the Night

Riders. Guiy unmarried men Avere chosen, and these Avho had some vital intT4J.it in tlie point at issue. Most of them, in fact, had already felt the lash of the Association in one way or another: the brother of one had been beaten-, until crippled, by the Riders in ah .adjoining country; another had lost his little store by the torch; and still another had been, driven from liis oAvn town by the muzzle of a dozen

guns. The day before Wade Hammack gave his filial answer to the Association, Jie sent his children to their grandparents’ home in Nashville. His wile refused to

“They’ll not dare to touch a avoman,” was her reply to his. entreaties, “if they lifted a finger that Avay the whole town Avould rise up and wipe them cut.”

After Hammack had talked with eac-Ji man on his list and everyone or them had eag(Tl;y enlisted for the fight, he chanced to meet Mart Buxton leaving the Av.irehouse,' after the day’s work, for the room in which lie lived ins hermit life. doAvn near the edge of the negro quarters. Already he had decided to say nothing to Buxton of the probable conflict of the Niglit Riders; fearing that the nows would shatter the pitiful remnant of manhood Avliicli might still exist under his shame and debasement. But, yielding to a sudden impulse, Hammack turned sharply and asked: “Mart, Avant to do something for me?” The averted, lifeless eyes turned to his with a faint slioav of .something like interest. This was the - only sign of anything akin to human animation Hammack had seen in the woodless, placid face since Buxton had asked for the guns that night in the library. ■ “The Association—Night Riders—are going to try to burn me out in a day or two, I guess. I’m going to fight ’em, Mart. About a dozen good men are going to stand by me. Do you want to be one of ’em, Mart? I’d .i'ke you to —that is, if you ier-I right about if.”

“ Yes,” answered Buxton • It Avas the first word he had spoken to liis friend since he' had taken liis place at the stripping table along Avitii the negroes. ■ '1 iie next day Hammack gave his answer to the Association —a blunt refusal to the demand to “come in,” and a statement that he should continue to run.his own business, and along the same lines on Avliicli he bad' conducted it in the past. “We’ll see about that,” Avas the response to bis declaration. He know that the Avar was on. and he at once summoned liis aids. They gathered in tlie little corner room of the Avarehouse and the boxes Avere opened. From one, fifteen pump shotguns of the latest model Avere taken—one for each man. Another box yielded three dozen automatic revolvers, each capable of shooting nine times Avith incredible swiftness. As Hammack handed an automatic to Buxton be saw a new light flash, up for a moment into his fishy eyes—and knew that lie had made no mistake in enlisting the whipped man.

The other boxes contained a store of ammunition for these rapid-fire arms. Corn baskets, heaped Avith cartridges for the guns and revolvers, were placed under each Avindow, witli the Aveapons ready for instant use.

“Let ’em come,” exclaimed Buck Morow, as ho brought the stock .of a pump gun to his shoulder. “I In w

t’ God they do! Its my chance t’ f even Avitli tli’ d— lioetotcrs for what they did to Brother Bill.”

“Here, too!” echoed Rufo Baso, as be smilingly surveyed the arms and ammunition. “With this layout Ave can stop three hundred of ’em before they cross the open out yonder.” There Avere three days of quiet Avaiting for the Indopondants inside the warehouse without a sign of change in tlie established order of tilings except that, morning and night, Avhite women brought dinner pails and left them, on the platform at the rear of the building— where they Avere taken in by waiting men.

But on tlu; morning of the fourth day, the town became suddenly alive, 'hive early trains from each direction emptied out scores of men ; every wagon road was thronged with mounted men and wagons and buggies loaded with men.

“This don’t loo'k exactly like ladies’ day in Sutton, docs it, Wader” observed Ilti,fe B.iso as he and Hammack peered from their lookout,window at the crowd which, was fast filling the freight house. “I should say not!” laughed Stuart Rhea. ‘‘(l;mss some one must have hung a sign in the town, ‘For Men Only.’ But they’ve got to come stronger than that if they get- where they c’n make a bonfire of us.”

Hammack said little beyond repeating the orders which ho had already given his helpers. Every window was manned and every door barred and bolted, lie had done his thinking, his planning beforehand,' and it only remained for.him quietly to await the attack. The crowd steadily increased until it overflowed the sprawling freight house and its wide platform and then strung up the\ street beyond the livery stable to the post officii. As he watched the gathering Hammack remarked: “It’s a good thing ,we’ve got two hundred feet of clear open space all around the warehouse. W? c’n watch every move they make, and they can’t steal a march on us.” | ■ (To be Continued.) ,